VW expects new EV platform will give it an edge over rivals

Auto News - Published on Fri, 14 Dec 2018

Auto News reported that VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat brands will launch 27 models based on the MEB architecture. Volkswagen said that the MEB platform that will underpin its ID electric-vehicle family will be even more scalable than the MQB architecture used for 80 percent of the group’s combustion engine cars. Because of that flexibility, MEB, which is a German abbreviation for Modular Electric Toolkit, could give VW a decisive edge over industry competitors when it comes to economies of scale.

Mr Tino Fuhrmann, project leader and head of the MEB model line during a presentation at VW’s factory in Dresden, Germany said that “This is a platform to generate volume by using the same parts in a wide variety of models. We have less variance than MQB, which is something we needed.”

Mr Fuhrmann said that “Those benefits were possible because Fuhrmann and his team tapped into the expertise VW has gained from years of using MQB, which is short for modular transverse matrix. The architecture is utilized in millions of VW Group combustion engine cars ranging in size from the VW Polo small hatchback to the 4900mm-long Skoda Superb sedan. All that we know from MQB, we put into MEB to get the best scale possible.”

By the end of 2022, the VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat brands will have launched 27 MEB-based models. VW Group expects to build about 10 million MEB vehicles over the life cycle of the first-generation architecture.